'Shy of you,' he added as, smiling gaily, he ran up the steps of the porch.
'How is it you are having a ball and have been driven out ?' 'It's at Ustenka's, at my landlady's, that the ball is, and you two are invited.

A ball consists of a pie and a gathering of girls.' 'What should we do there ?' Beletski smiled knowingly and winked, jerking his head in the direction of the outhouse into which Maryanka had disappeared.
Olenin shrugged his shoulders and blushed.
'Well, really you are a strange fellow!' said he.
'Come now, don't pretend' Olenin frowned, and Beletski noticing this smiled insinuatingly.

'Oh, come, what do you mean ?' he said, 'living in the same house--and such a fine girl, a splendid girl, a perfect beauty.' 'Wonderfully beautiful! I never saw such a woman before,' replied Olenin.
'Well then ?' said Beletski, quite unable to understand the situation.
'It may be strange,' replied Olenin, 'but why should I not say what is true?
Since I have lived here women don't seem to exist for me.

And it is so good, really! Now what can there be in common between us and women like these?
Eroshka--that's a different matter! He and I have a passion in common--sport.' 'There now! In common! And what have I in common with Amalia Ivanovna?
It's the same thing! You may say they're not very clean--that's another matter...

A la guerre, comme a la guerre! ...' 'But I have never known any Amalia Ivanovas, and have never known how to behave with women of that sort,' replied Olenin.